In the cutting of stone fruit for canning or the like it is customary to cut the fruit around the stone so that the two halves of the fruit can be removed from the stone.
In the case of apricots the stone can be readily removed once the apricot has been halved as generally the stone is not attached to the flesh but even in cases where there is some attachment of the stone, provided the cut is correctly made to completely encircle the fruit and the cut extends right down to the stone, no problems in removing the stone are then encountered.
Various types of machines have been proposed heretofore for this purpose, such for instance as machines which have a pair of cups which engage the fruit to be cut and rotate it against a saw or cutting blade or the like.
With machines of this nature it is difficult to accurately position the fruit and also one of the essentials in cutting fruit is to ensure that there will be no bruising of the fruit such as when the fruit is incorrectly held in cups or the like.
The object of the present invention therefore, is to provide an improved machine which can successfully cut fruit such as apricots, and which can do this in a simple and effective manner.